Giants pitchers should avoid All-Star Game

With the news that Giants stellar hurler Tim Lincecum couldn’t even make it to the park for tonight’s All-Star Game, we have us an official-like trend.

Giants pitchers should avoid these mid-summer “classics” at all cost.

You remember Atlee Hammaker’s seven-earned run outing in 1983. He was never the same after that emabrrassment.

Atlee. Slammed into oblivion.

Rick Reuschel had pitched well enough in 1989 to earn the start for the N.L. Bo Jackson utterly destroyed a typical downward trending Big Daddy pitch, taking it from about a foot off the ground into the Anaheim stratosphere.

Yes, the Giants went on to the World Series that year, but the resulting sweep was worse than not getting there at all because it was the A’s that did the sweeping.

Stu Miller was blown so hard by the Candlestick Park wind in 1961 that he balked and blew a save.

Bad things, man.

Is there any doubt reliever Brian Wilson will be involved in something negative or perhaps loss-deciding, especially after saying he wanted to A-Rod and Jeter because he grew up a Red Sox. Yo Brian, DO NOT poke the Tiger.

Of course the N.L. will have to hang close long enough for Wilson’s appearance to matter much. Looking at the lineups, it looks like a mismatch.

And the only way this game “counts” is if the World Series goes seven games. So it might count, it could count. But odds are, it won’t.

Willie McCovey. Always Willie McCovey.

Sure, I didn’t mention that Hall of Famer Juan Marichal was the MVP in ’65.

And on offense, Willie Mays was only the best all-star ever.

And I can still remember leaping out of my chair as a jacked-up 11-year-old when Willie McCovey hit two homers at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. in 1969 to win the MVP. The second would still be climbing if it hadn’t hit a solid surface.

Willie McCovey. Sigh. I think I’ll leave you with that image, since this year’s team is the anti-McCoveys.